You can do and say all sorts of things, as you do, but don't ever call me a liar. It is an indignity that I will not accept readily. Ignorance is no plea. The fact that you might not be aware of what I have posted does not in any way alter the fact that I have.

jeremypayne

You can do and say all sorts of things, as you do, but don't ever call me a liar. It is an indignity that I will not accept readily. Ignorance is no plea. The fact that you might not be aware of what I have posted does not in any way alter the fact that I have.

Good for you, Walter. Refuse to accept the indignity ... along with digital imaging. It is your right.

Truth to be told, Walter did post here (reply #17)... though I wish he did not

Thanks, Slobodan, I went through a bunch of Walter's earlier posts and finally gave up. The reference you dug up makes it clear I was right when I said I suspected his kind of photography isn't this kind of photography.

I'm sure your kind of photography takes a lot of thought, Walter, and it illustrates vividly what I said: thinking tends to screw up photography.

I was flipping through the new edition of American Photographs and came across Evans' picture of the painted bull's head (an ad on a wall for, I think, a butcher) and the cow caught my eye. Of course it's a superficial resemblance, a single common motif, but I couldn't help but think of this one here at the top of the thread.

Is that how Friedlander works? It looks like something, but you don't know what, but it keeps popping up in your mind?

Andrew, I think Friedlander, Cartier-Bresson, Winogrand, Frank, Levitt, and Vivian Maier all go down the street throwing frames around things. When something works, they lift (or look into) the camera and trip the shutter. I doubt any of them think about the shot at the time they make it. I'm sure that's not always true, but I suspect it's true for most of their best work. I see HCB reacting in his street shots, and I see him thinking in his photojournalism, the kind of work he did for, say, The People of Moscow. To me the photojournalism includes his usual fine geometric composition, but lacks the intuitive thrust of his street work. I think Walker Evans, on the other hand, had two personalities: the stand camera personality and the hand camera personality. He had to think with the view camera, but I think he reacted with the hand camera, just like the rest of them. Elliott Erwitt is an interesting cross between the two things. He sees a setup and thinks about it, but then he starts reacting as the situation develops, and, usually, follows it to its end. What he gets is a series of street shots, but they're based on a prior expectation. I'd love to have been there to see him get that picture of the dog leaning over the back of the restaurant booth.

Walter has posted pictures here, as I know perfectly well, and it's only his refusal to be goaded into a display of excellence that stops him from killing some of you people in your tracks.

Walter has an enviable magazine photography (as well as commercial photography) record that would close most people here down.

Because someone chooses to keep a modest profile, showing only personal work that interests/amuses him isn't reason for a mob lynching. If there's a moral, it's keep your traps closed unless you really know of what you speak or, in this case, write.

If anything, kudos to Walter for being able to grin, mostly ignore and refrain from making people feel small.

amolitor

The quality of Walter's work is not really at issue, Russ just remarked that he didn't know what Walter's preferred style was, and that Russ's work is best done with a certain mindset. Since Walter brought it up, I will note that he never seems to supply a courteous "in my opinion" even when he says quite nasty things.

Russ, I had just recently noticed that about Walker Evans, there was a moment of "these photos are different, I like them more, they're looser and more interesting.. And also skinnier. oooh!" which makes a great deal of sense.

The quality of Walter's work is not really at issue, Russ just remarked that he didn't know what Walter's preferred style was, and that Russ's work is best done with a certain mindset. Since Walter brought it up, I will note that he never seems to supply a courteous "in my opinion" even when he says quite nasty things.

Russ, I had just recently noticed that about Walker Evans, there was a moment of "these photos are different, I like them more, they're looser and more interesting.. And also skinnier. oooh!" which makes a great deal of sense.

I'm willing to agree that, for him, it might well have made sense. For me, however, it makes little or none as I'm not aware of his context at the time of the pronouncement. It appears that some photographers attain biblical status - entire libraries are offered up to them in acts of worship. Anyway, it always helps when they are safely dead, though, as they find it a little difficult to contradict or set the record straight. Biographers must love this.

. . . it's only his refusal to be goaded into a display of excellence that stops him from killing some of you people in your tracks.

Rob, I'm not afraid of dying, so how about goading Walter into making his "display of excellence." I gather the display would be a different kind of photography from the kind he's displayed here so far.

One of the things our discussions haven't much addressed is the huge disconnect between commercial photography and fine art photography. They're very different things, and I suspect that someone who's developed a deep appreciation for one genre may have trouble grasping significance within the other.

Frankly, I plead guilty to that shortcoming. What I'm after when I look at a photograph is a kind of transcendental experience -- something I can't put into words, and I know that that's almost the reverse of what commercial outlets look for: instantly apprehensible imagery.

amolitor

What I'm after when I look at a photograph is a kind of transcendental experience -- something I can't put into words, and I know that that's almost the reverse of what commercial outlets look for: instantly apprehensible imagery.

What a great point. I spend a lot of time thinking about the commonalities of commercial and fine art work, but I never really thought about how they're inherently different, at this level.

One of the few virtues of being a dilettante, like myself, is that you are not too locked in to any one thing. If you're very good at one thing, especially if you earn your bread doing that one thing (or small set of things) it is almost inevitable that you will begin to equate "good" with "looks like this one thing". After all, you presumably like the work you are doing, AND it is demonstrably good because people will pay you for it. I think it takes a real effort of will to see the good in work that is radically different.

What a great point. I spend a lot of time thinking about the commonalities of commercial and fine art work, but I never really thought about how they're inherently different, at this level.

One of the few virtues of being a dilettante, like myself, is that you are not too locked in to any one thing. If you're very good at one thing, especially if you earn your bread doing that one thing (or small set of things) it is almost inevitable that you will begin to equate "good" with "looks like this one thing". After all, you presumably like the work you are doing, AND it is demonstrably good because people will pay you for it. I think it takes a real effort of will to see the good in work that is radically different.

On the face of it, your argument is sound. Unfortunately, it doesn't hold water. And the reason why it leaks is that you are working on the assumption that people are one or the other. Not so; many pros are perfectly capable of enjoying work that has nothing to do with the way they earn their keep; in fact, it can be the very difference that is the attraction.

Iím sorry to refer again to my own experiences, but then they are the only ones Iím really willing to rely upon, so bear with me here, please.

Before I became a fashion and then calendar girl photographer I was totally besotted with the world of photojournalists and their doings. I was never concerned with Ďartí photographers because in my youth, no such animal had yet been invented and people who went around photographing peppers and other vegetables were regarded with a slightly raised eyebrow. Landscape wasnít anything that anyone held in high esteem: it was regarded as little more than being there at the right time, the reserve of those with no better outlets available to them Ė maybe something that still haunts me today. That was certainly the experience in the UK; from the little financial success that even the Americans achieved in their day, I guess their payoff was the bohemian lifestyle and the oodles of supposedly free love in the south-western states of the US of A or even, amen, Mexico.

My suspicion is, basically, that the latter part of the last century saw the commercialization of amateur photography to a level where it began to be accepted as an art form in itself, something fairly new if dedicated galleries were anything to go by. Even now, Iíd guess that within the European world, France is a leader in the acceptance of photography as a fine art. I believe that it was the appearance of modern office spaces along with the newly discovered/invented glamour of city lofts that lent itself to photography as an acceptable form of decoration. If not decoration, then art photography has no future beyond a sterile form of investment. That this would content many shooters isnít in dispute; that it has anything to do with their self-fulfilment as artists is doubtful.

Further, I think that the buying of photographs for domestic decoration is probably a youthful interest; many of my age wouldnít seriously consider anything other than a really good painting or two as worthy of display; in my own case, I only hang photographs because they are my own and they mean something beyond the image: they bring back happy professional moments that stretch far beyond the merits of the images alone. But hanging other peopleís photographs, other than in the office, isnít on. However, other peopleís photographs, as in books, have always fascinated me, and it was lack of funds in the golden days of such publications that kept me pestering the local librarian but not the bookshops. I really envy people like Russ with his vast collection; it would be a wonderful way of passing the long, boring, otherwise tv-bound winter nights. But there you go Ė I didnít buy at the right time, and now that I can I canít.

So no, I wouldnít agree that being a professional photographer of women hinders or impedes oneís ability to enjoy W. Eugene Smith. But it takes a W.E.Smith to turn on the juices, and there are very few such men around these days.

amolitor

I have no issue with you drawing on your own experiences, after all, it's all anyone has to draw upon, ultimately.

My apologies for suggesting that commercial guys were "locked in" which was a terrible word choice. What I really meant to say was something, I think, milder than what I did say. There is, I believe, a tendency for commercial people and in general any photographer who has a clear vision of their own work, to judge other work from that point of view.

Some people, obviously, can step outside their own work with little effort. Others have a harder time of it. What I have observed is that commercial photographers seem to me to have a slightly higher tendency to be dismissive of photography done in non-commercial styles. I am not working from any actual statistical study here, this is pretty much just an anecdotal observation.

Anyways, I think we probably come close to agreement here and if we seem still to differ widely, you should assume that I am continuing to communicate poorly.